"Love takes off masks we fear we cannot live without, and know we cannot live within." -James Baldwin

49 days sober

It takes eight and a half weeks of school for Jeff to let me handle one of the Music History sessions by myself; it takes ten seconds of him being out of the room for me to text Travis and say, skip your next class and come keep me company in the music room. my freshmen have a test & jeff left me alone to supervise. He wanders in as I’m passing out the test packets. “You’re lucky I have study hall this period.” “Dude, if you have last period study, why are you even here? I’d go home early every day.” “Forgive me if I don’t take attendance advice from a guy who got expelled for skipping seven straight weeks of school last year,” he says. A handful of the freshmen giggle. I narrow my eyes at them. “No talking. I’ll be grading everybody’s homework and passing it back while you’re taking your tests, so leave room under your desks. I don’t want to have to push you out of the way just so I can put the graded papers with the rest of your shit—sorry, stuff. Books. Whatever. Raise your hand if you have a question, and I’ll come over to you, alright?” Claire, one of the girls who always sits in the back and sneaks awestruck glances at me when she thinks I’m not looking, raises her hand. “Should we bring our finished tests to you?” “Stack them on the desk in the back, okay?” I say. No one protests, so I make a vague do your fucking work gesture and retreat to the back of the classroom with Travis. The stack of homework is simple enough to correct—it was a multiple-choice worksheet, so all I have to do is compare the answers to the key Jeff made up for me. Only about half the people in the class turned it in, anyway. Halfway through the stack, Travis asks, in a voice so soft I almost can’t hear it over the scratching of my own pen, “Are you going to go home after rehearsal, or are you going right to the apartment?” I blink and say, in my normal volume, “Why are you whispering?” “Because they’re taking a test.” “So? Jeff and I have talked through every test and quiz they’ve had all semester. The world’s a loud place, they need to learn to adapt to their environments. I’m helping them. Making men out of them, like I did to you.” He raises his eyebrows and mutters, “Hopefully not exactly like how you made a man out of me.” Jessica, another of the back-row girls, turns around to give us an appraising look. I say to her, “Yeah, that was a sex joke. Turn around and focus on your test.” She quickly faces forward, and I turn my attention back to Travis. “I’m going home after. I have to get my costume ready. You?” He shrugs. “Alex texted me to tell me that costumes are mandatory, even for—these are his words, not mine— ‘douchebags who think they’re too cool to follow the house rules.’ I’m guessing he’s talking about us?” I snort. “He’s talking about you, not me. I fucking love costume parties. Do you have anything at your house you can use?” “Of course. After you and Bill moved out, I took the liberty of turning your old bedroom into my own private costume den,” he says dryly. I duck to nose at his jaw for a moment as I murmur, “Kinky. Shame that wasn’t the case when we were still dating. I bet we could have had fun with—” “Boundaries, G,” Travis reminds me, bracing a hand against my shoulder and guiding me back to my seat. I scowl—we’ve only been friends again for a few days, but this is already a constant battle. I maintain that, if he hadn’t bailed on our friendship at the beginning of the school year, he’d already be aware of and used to my somewhat recently developed need to be constantly touching people. He says he doesn’t give a shit what my post-rehab quirks are, and that I don’t get to manhandle him just because I like the comfort of someone else’s skin against mine. Thankfully, any possible tension caused by the rejection is blunted by Kyle, a kid near the windows, raising his hand. I toss my red pen down and trot over to him. “What’s up?” He thrusts his pen at one of the questions and asks, “For this one, are we supposed to write a full paragraph, or do you just want a list?” “A list is fine. Do you remember the handout you got last week?” I say. He nods. “There were eight bullets on that handout, so write down any five you remember, and you’ll be all set.” He smiles his thanks, and I return to Travis, who hitches his chin at me. “Look at you, being a teacher.” “Right? It’s like I’m a real adult, or something. So, what are you going to do about the costume thing?” “Dunno. I’ll dig through whatever we have at the house, but I’m not really worried about it. Worst case scenario, I’ll flat-iron my hair, get wasted, and go as you,” he says, smirking at me. I don’t smirk back. Because that is the greatest idea I have ever heard. Eyes widening at the spark of delight he must see on my face right now, he gives his head an emphatic shake and says, “Nope. No, not doing it. It was a joke—” “Oh my god, you have to do it. I’ll spike your hair, you can wear some of my clothes—maybe a Patton shirt, my leather jacket? What’s your shoe size?” He glares at me and says nothing, so I thrust a hand under the desk we’re seated at and grab his ankle, twisting his leg around until I can check the number stamped into the sole of his shoe. Twelve. “Dude, we totally wear the same size shoes, my boots would fit you perfectly. Shit, can I pierce your lip?” His eyes practically bulge out of his head. “What the hell is wrong with you? No, you cannot pierce my lip!” “Why not? I did mine twice, and that turned out fine,” I protest. “You’d probably snorted half a gram of coke that morning, you couldn’t feel it!” he says, and okay, fair point. “Besides, I can’t go to one ex-boyfriend’s party dressed as my other ex-boyfriend. That’s so weird.” “It’s not like Ben and I hate each other. I mean, we’ve nailed each other more recently than either of us has nailed you, so it’s not like he’s going to get jealous—for fuck’s sake, Jessica, turn around and do your test. Anyway, come on, it’ll be great. You can spend the whole party chain-smoking and getting shit-faced and groping Jamie,” I say, now beginning to copy out the homework scores into Jeff’s grade book. He rolls his eyes. “I don’t smoke, dude. And I think Alex would probably punch me if I went after another guy he likes.” “Something tells me that Alex wouldn’t really give a shit,” I say flatly. “Things still bad between them?” he asks, cringing, and my only response is a shrug. The truth is, I have no idea what’s going on between Jamie and Alex right now. Al had still been sort of pissy and checking his phone every few minutes when he left on Saturday, and I haven’t seen him since. Jamie had been relatively silent for the rest of the weekend, but had texted me yesterday with an intentionally vague, Talked to Alexander. I think I’ll be coming into town for the party after all. Still up for letting me sleep over after? I had responded by sending him a picture of me, shirtless in bed, giving him a cheesy thumbs up, along with the words, only if i get to be the little spoon. Considering the fact that I’ve got three shitshow relationships under my belt—the psychopath who hospitalized me, my own stepbrother, and a not-relationship that never really went beyond friendship and sex—I probably shouldn’t be baffled by this whole Jamie-and-Alex thing, but I am. I don’t understand why Alex won’t just agree to be boyfriends, and I sure as hell don’t understand why Jamie is going along with that, even though he’s made it explicitly clear that he wants more. The longer it goes on, the more I regret letting them get involved in the first place.

I spend the rest of the class period passing out papers and trying to overload Travis with reasons why he should dress up as me for the party tonight. He keeps shooting them down, but by the time the last bell rings, I’m pretty sure he’s starting to waver. At least, I’m sure enough that I don’t consider it a gamble to drive to the costume shop in the next town to buy a clip-on lip ring, and a few tubes of face paint so I can cover up his freckles and change his G tattoo to a T.

A little before six thirty rolls around, I head over to the Daily Grind to intercept him before he leaves work. The moment he glances up from the espresso machine and sees me walking in, he sets to work making me a coffee, even as he says, “I really hope you’re not here because you’re still trying to convince me to do that dumb costume.” “Of course not,” I lie cheerfully. “I was actually thinking we could drive to rehearsal together. Since you claim not to have any costume stuff at your house, I’m sure there’s something in storage at mine for you to use. I’ll follow you back to your house now so you can drop off your car, we’ll do the drama thing, then go back to my place. Jamie’s going to take a cab there from the train station to get ready and drop off his stuff. Dad’ll probably let me borrow the Benz to drive us all to the apartment. Besides—” I drop my voice a little, just because I’m not sure if he’ll give a shit about me saying this loudly enough for his coworkers to hear, “—there’s going to be a shit-ton of booze there, and this way, you’ll be able to drink if you want, without having to worry about driving yourself home after. I can just drop you off on my way back to my house.” His eyebrows draw together, and he is so momentarily distracted that he doesn’t realize he’s overfilling the cup he’s holding. Freshly brewed coffee spills over the lip onto his hand, and he flinches hard enough to make even more slop over. God, this kid is just not having a good day at work. Swearing, he shoves the coffee pot back onto the burner and towels off his hand, scowling down at his reddened skin. “You alright?” I ask. “Oh my—Christ on a cracker, that shit is hot,” he announces, and I snicker. “You’ve been working here for almost two years, and you only just now came to the conclusion that coffee is hot? Really? They’re so lucky to have you on staff. You must be employee of the month,” I say. The other barista on shift perks up and chirps, “Actually, he is. Third month in a row!” “Sara, can you not?” Travis asks, but I’m already laughing at him a little bit. I can’t help it—I’m instinctively amused by anything as adorably lame as being employee of the month. I wonder if there’s some gay little picture of him hanging up somewhere. Before I can ask to see it, he passes me the too-hot coffee and says, “Meet me out front, I’m just going to go clock out.” I reach into my pocket to pull out my wallet so that I can pay for the coffee, but Travis stills me with a glare, snaps his fingers to get his coworker’s attention, then points to me. The girl—Sara nods, and he disappears into the back room. In about half a second, Sara is leaning across the counter to whisper conspiratorially, “I know he does that for you all the time, but I think that’s just the cutest thing ever.” “Huh?” I say, eloquent as ever. “The coffee thing. Like, how he buys it for you, and how he has this little note for us about it?” she says. When I continue to stare blankly at her, she points at a Post-It note taped to the counter next to the register. I crane my neck to read Travis’ cramped scrawl. In regards to the guy with the spiked hair and lip ring who comes in every morning: he asks for black coffee, but what he really wants is a double shot in the dark with a pump of caramel syrup. He orders two: charge him for one, take the rest of the money out of the envelope tacked to the bulletin board in the backroom. Don’t tell him, he’ll never let me hear the end of it. —Travis I blink up at the menu board, only just now realizing that yeah, I’ve only been getting charged for half my daily order for the past few weeks. Ever since the first time Travis made me that good coffee, the day after he told me about Joss. I take a sip of the drink and try not to smile. “Guess you suck at that ‘don’t tell him’ part.” Sara shrugs. “If I had a boyfriend who did sweet stuff like that for me, I’d want to know about it.” “He’s not my boyfriend,” I say, and she frowns. “He’s not?” “He’s my stepbrother.” “I thought he was both.” I resist the urge to laugh—how fucked up is it that Travis and I have managed to make it so that half the people in Lakewood barely bat an eye over the fact that we’re stepbrothers who used to bang each other? Before I can correct her, Travis reappears from the back room and prompts, “Are you completely incapable of following instructions? I said to meet me out front.” “I’ve never listened to you before. Why would I start now?” I ask, though I lead the way out of the building anyway. Pausing between our cars, I add, “So, do you want me to follow you home so you can drop off your car before rehearsal, or not?” He hesitates, then admits, “I feel really weird about the idea of drinking in front of you tonight.” I shrug. “You have before.” “No, I split half a beer with Alex,” he argues. “That’s not drinking. Or, at least, that’s not the I’ll-drive-you-home-so-you-don’t-have-to-worry-about-your-car sort of drinking. There’s no way it can be healthy for you to be around—” “Travis. Stop it,” I interrupt, trying not to let my hands ball up into fists. “You realize that I’ve been to bars since getting out of rehab, right? Bars, and clubs, and plenty of places they serve alcohol. It’s not seeing other people drink that gets to me; it’s bad nights and awful situations where the only way I know how to deal with it is by getting shitfaced. It’s—dude, it was never about the alcohol, alright? It was about the oblivion. And I’m fine right now, I’m in a really good place, so don’t ruin the party tonight by spending the entire thing worrying about whether or not I’m going to try to get drunk. Because I’m not. But you can, and that’s okay. Jamie’s going to drink. Stohler’s going to drink. Alex’s going to drink. You can, too. It’s fine.” “You’re sure?” he says doubtfully, and I send him an eyeroll vicious enough to have him laughing and saying, “Fine, fine. I’d say ‘follow me back to my house,’ but I’m pretty sure you know how to get there anyway—” “—on account of how it technically belongs to my father, and I used to live there? Yep. Pretty sure I can find it. But you can lead the way, if it makes you feel important.” He sneers at me and clambers into his car, not bothering to reply. I shadow him all the way back to the old house, tail-gating a little just to annoy him, then idle at the curb while he turns into the driveway and cuts the engine. I can see him rummaging around on the passenger seat—I think he’s trying to find his script and stage crew notes in his backpack—and then, out of the corner of my eye, I see movement at the front window of the house. I blink over. Evelyn is peering out of the curtains, her eyes wide and furious as they light on my car. She knows it’s me, even if she can’t see me sitting in the driver’s seat. I can’t stand watching her, watching me; I light myself a cigarette and crank up the stereo, singing along with the voice crooning from the speakers, “Give me fire, give me fire, it’ll burn all your fear away.”

I’m not sure if it’s the stereo or my singing that attracts Travis’ attention, but I see him twist around in his car, peering out at me, then noticing my pretty obvious discomfort. He looks around, freezes when he sees his mom peeking out from the living room window. Slowly, he gathers up his crew papers, stuffs them into his backpack, and gets out of the car, heading towards me. He’s about six feet away from the passenger side when the front door to the house opens, and Evelyn steps out. Travis whips around to face her so quickly that he almost falls. I can hear the faint rumble of his voice, but the music is too loud for me to make out any specific words. I let my head roll to the side so that my eyes can lock onto Evelyn. She hasn’t moved since stepping outside; she hasn’t said a word to him.

“Mom? Did you hear me?” I can hear him say. Still, she says nothing. “I still got my eyes on you, baby,” I sing along to the radio. “I still got my eyes on you, baby.” I wonder if she can hear my voice. I wonder if that’s why she’s still not speaking to him. I wonder if she’s punishing him for leaving with me right now. Travis says, “I said, I’m going to rehearsal now, okay? And I’m going to a Halloween party at Ben and Alex’s place after, okay?” Still nothing. I still got my eyes on you, baby. “Mom?” Silence, I still got my eyes on you, baby, then his voice again, a little desperate. “Do you even care?” “I wanna be close to you.” He yanks open the car door and tumbles into the seat, crowding up into my space and whispering in a voice I can barely hear over the music, “Can you just drive now?” I’m not an idiot, I know exactly what he’s doing—between the height of my car, the distance from here to the porch, the angle she’s seeing us at, it must look to his mom like he and I are kissing right now. He’s doing it on purpose, presumably to punish her back. I’m nothing if not an accomodating friend. I reach up and thread my hand into his hair, cradling the back of his head in my palm the way I might if we really were kissing. I consider telling him that he might as well go for it, but I doubt he would. So instead, I say, “Put your seatbelt on,” and release him. He sinks back into his own seat and buckles up. We both sneak one last glance at Evelyn, who is glowering from the porch, but still hasn’t moved. I gun it towards the school. Unfortunately, by the time we make it to rehearsal, Travis’ sneaker has gotten tangled up in the costume shop bag on his side of the floor, and he has realized that I was completely lying when I said I wasn’t still trying to convince him to dress up as me. We make our way into the building with him shaking his head resolutely and me pacing around him, weaving in front of him and circling him like a coked-up Chihuahua trying to get attention. “Dude, please, come on, it’ll be perfect.” “Or it’ll be the opposite of perfect,” Travis suggests, pushing open the door to the auditorium. I bounce in place a few times, then bolt through the doorway after him. “No, shut up. Stop being a dick. You don’t have another costume planned out, so if you agree to this one, I’ll do all the work. It’ll be just like our sex life was—” “Fuck you!” he says, shoving me into the nearest row of seats, sending me toppling to the floor and attracting the attention of pretty much everyone who has already arrived for rehearsal. “God, you did not ‘do all the work,’ you piece of shit. Like, is that really how you remember it? Because the way I remember it, I was giving as good as I was getting—” “I mean, do you wanna go again right now, just to remind me?” I offer, scrambling back up to my feet, but he’s still talking right over me. “Seriously, I’m developing such a complex about our sex life,” he snaps, not seeming to notice that our friends are staring at him with raised eyebrows as he continues to head down the aisle towards him. I skip after him, delighted as ever to have people’s attention on me, where I’m personally pretty convinced it belongs all the time. “First, it was all that bullshit at the party last spring—‘oh, hey guys, this is my little brother, he over-analyzes sex and doesn’t pull my hair enough when I fuck him, I wonder what it’s like when he fucks his boyfriend, because they’re both total bottoms.’ Speaking of which, I am not a total bottom—” “I believe you, man, I swear—” “—and if you don’t believe me, you can ask your boyfriend—” “—ex-not-boyfriend—” “—because I wrecked that guy, alright?” “Really, Travis? We’re going to talk about this right now?” “—shoved him up against a wall and fucked him from behind not ten minutes after you said that shit—” “Alright, either you need to stop talking, or you need to not get weirded out when I start jerking off, because that is actually insanely hot to picture, and I have no impulse control.” Before he can say anything else, I lean around him and say loudly, “Also, hello, friends-who-don’t-need-to-hear-any-of-this.” Travis blinks over his shoulder at me, then at the group, then turns a deeply attractive shade of red. “Oh. Uh. Sorry.” “Don’t be,” John says cheerfully. “More interesting than listening to Nate and Annabelle debate the best brand of dance shoes.” “What’s more interesting than that?” Joss asks, striding out of one of the wings onto the stage. To say that Travis appears relieved that she wasn’t around for his outburst would be an understatement. He shoves past John and hoists himself up onto the stage, looping an arm around Joss and pecking a kiss to her cheek. “Hi. Nothing. You, you’re interesting. How are you?” Riley makes a sound like a whip cracking, and I nod my agreement before flinging myself into a seat in the third row. Nate and Annabelle are indeed debating dance shoes, which is kind of pointless, in my opinion—the costumes have already been selected for everyone, and we’re all wearing matching black Chuck Taylors for everything but the school dance and the final scene, where Joss will switch to a pair of high-heeled sandals. Still, the conversation is a welcome distraction, and by the time Travis and Joss join us back on the floor, he seems to have gotten over his irritation with me. “Oh, I almost forgot,” Miranda says, reaching out to nudge my shoulder. “We’re doing a scary movie night at my place after rehearsal. You should come.” I blink. On the one hand, I’m touched that she’d invite me. On the other, even if I didn’t have plans already, I’d rather saw off my own foot than settle in for ‘scary movie night’ with a bunch of sixteen-year-olds. But I smile politely and say, “Thanks for the offer. I have plans, though. My friends are having a party at their place.” She exaggerates a pout at me, and I shrug, grinning more easily now. She turns to Travis and says, “You’re coming, though, right? Joss said she invited you.” Travis frowns over at Joss. “When did you invite me to a movie night?” “Sunday? I told you about it after breakfast,” she says, and if I mutter gross under my breath at the idea of them having breakfast together or waking up together or spending the night together or basically doing anything together, that’s not my fault. She shoots me a steely glare, then continues, “I told you Miranda was having a big movie night, and it’s tradition.” His response is a slow, carefully worded, “Yes, you told me about it, but you didn’t invite me to it. And if you had, I would have respectfully declined, because I already accepted an invitation on Saturday for something else.” “What—” Joss starts, but she breaks off almost immediately, turning to stare at me. A Cheshire cat grin is creeping across my face, and I know I must look like a complete asshole right now, but I don’t even care. All I want is a few more seconds of her believing that maybe he’s choosing me, for once. She manages to dial her temper from ‘unadulterated outrage’ down to ‘simply passive-aggressive’ as she shrugs and says, “My mistake, I guess. I just assumed you knew I was inviting you. I thought we were going to do something together, but if you don’t want to, that’s fine.” Travis rubs the back of his neck and says slowly, “It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just that I already made plans to do something else. You should have said something earlier, or been more explicit in your invitation. If I’d known you wanted to do something together, I wouldn’t have agreed to go to the party, but it’s not like I’m going to back out now.” “Why can’t you just bring her to the party with you?” Miranda asks. I’m barely able to restrain an eyeroll as I say, “Look, it’s not really a high school thing, okay?” “You’re in high school,” Joss snaps. “You both are.” “Bullshit. I barely count as being in high school. We all know I should’ve graduated last spring, and more to the point, we all know I only bother to show up now because my parents will be pissed if I end up as a high school dropout after the sixty grand they poured into those three years of boarding school.” They should’ve just let me stay there. It’s not like me going to school in New York while Dad lived in Connecticut would have been any worse than the three years I was going to school in New York while he lived in Ohio. And hey, maybe I would’ve actually graduated, if I’d been able to finish out my senior year at Patton instead of getting dragged to this shitsuck of a town. But my prep school problems aren’t the point, so I add, “Anyway, I’m two months younger than Ben, and five months older than Alex. They’re not going to ban me from their parties just because I blew off a few classes last spring.” “A few? Garen, you blew off one hundred and seventy-five classes. In a row,” Travis says. “I know, right? Like, you don’t know whether to be disappointed or impressed. My dad had the same prob—” “Travis is in high school,” Joss interrupts, arms crossed tightly over her chest now. “You might be the same age as them, but Travis is still definitely, unequivocally in high school, so if it’s ‘not really a high school thing,’ why is he going?” Josslyn Pryce, I am so sick of your shit, I want to yell in her face. She’s being such a fucking troll right now, and she knows it. Travis and Alex are closer in age than Alex and I are, it’s not like Trav’s a fucking freshman. Joss is just pissed because she’s not invited, and I am. But I can’t really say any of that, so I settle for being as passively bitchy as she has elected to be. I smile sweetly at her and say, “House rules: if both of the hosts have touched your cock, you’re allowed to attend the party, regardless of what grade you’re in.” “Look,” Travis says hastily, seeming to realize that this forced civility can’t continue much longer, “I’m sorry if you wanted me to go to Miranda’s, but I made other plans, with other friends. I’m not going to back out now, so that’s sort of the end of the debate, alright?” He turns to me, desperate for some sort of conversational distraction, and demands to know, “What dumb piece-of-shit costume have you picked out for yourself tonight?” I shrug. “I’m gonna be a duck-billed platypus.” There is a very long moment wherein everyone regards me with blank expressions. I sigh and say, first to Riley, then to Travis, “Give me your hat. Give me your sweatshirt. I’ll show you guys.” Riley tosses me his baseball cap, and I begin to carefully flatten the brim as much as I can. Next to me, Travis stands up and shucks off his sweatshirt; the shirt he’s wearing underneath rides up, exposing several inches of smooth, tanned skin that I have to work extremely hard not to lean over and lick. I must have a shittier poker face than I thought, though, because Annabelle is smirking at me from a few feet away. I roll my eyes at her and pull on the sweatshirt, popping the hood up over the cap so that only the brim pokes out. “See? You use a black cap for the bill, and a brown hoodie—stick little eyes on top of it, so it looks like a head. Then you attach a tail to the back hem of the hoodie, and you wear gloves with some sort of material between the fingers so it looks like you have webbed—fuck you guys, stop looking at me like that. I really like Halloween, okay?” “Do you always dress up as an animal?” Travis asks. “Not really, no. Just last year and this year.” I toss Riley’s hat back to him and move to take off the hoodie, but Travis shakes his head and says, “Keep it. It’s a hundred degrees in here, anyway.” I consider making a snide comment about how it wouldn’t be nearly as bad if he hadn’t been dumb enough to layer his hoodie over a long-sleeved shirt instead of a short sleeved one, but I’m not an idiot. I know exactly why he’s always wearing long sleeves; I can’t get rid of that image of the thin cut on his forearm, right at the edge of his sleeve. Besides, if I give the hoodie back, I won’t have the opportunity to burrow deeper into it and try to breathe in the scent of the fabric when no one’s looking. Travis always smells the same—like coconut shampoo and fresh coffee grounds. The scent always goes straight to my heart, curling up in my chest and making me feel warm right down to my toes. Annabelle nudges my boot with the toe of her sneaker and asks, “So, what animal were you last year?” “A raccoon,” I say, and she grins. It had been an objectively awesome costume, and it’s a shame that none of them got to see it. Well, except Travis. I glance over at him, and he’s looking back at me, head cocked slightly to the side, as though he’s remembering it, too. I knock my knee against his and say in a husky whisper, “Nice tail.” He buries his face in his hands. “Are you ever going to let me live that down?” “Never,” I say. “We’ll be ninety years old, living in the same old people’s home, and I’ll be sending the nurses down the hall with little notes that just say ‘nice tail’ in huge, block letters. It was simultaneously the single greatest and worst come-on that anyone has ever used on me. It’s been a year, and I’m still trying to figure out how the hell I ended up dating a guy who dressed up as the Phantom of the Opera, copped a feel, and used that line. Like, you’re lucky I’m easy, because it never would have worked on someone with higher standards.” “You guys first hooked up on Halloween?” Annabelle says, at the same moment that Miranda practically coos, “Aw, today would’ve been your first anniversary?” Joss lands a hard stomp to her best friend’s foot, and Miranda yelps. I know Joss wouldn’t dare kick me like that, and I’m such a fan of pissing her off. I beam at Miranda and say, “Nope! It was almost another two weeks before we started dating. Wait. Birthday blowjobs count as a date, right? ‘Cause if they don’t, there’s a strong possibility that Travis and I never actually went on a date.” I pause, then add to Travis, “Fuck. Your birthday’s next Saturday, isn’t it? I have no idea what I’m going to get you this year.” He says, seemingly without thinking, “People say it’s bad form to give the same gift two years in a row, but those people probably haven’t met you and your lack of a gag reflex. So, I’m down for a repeat of last year’s present, if you are.” That joke is too much for Joss; she stands and strides away, shaking Travis off when he immediately bolts after her, pleading, “Joss, come on. I didn’t mean anything by it, I was just screwing around—” “Oh, I’ll bet you were,” she says with a harsh laugh, and that’s all we hear before they clear the auditorium doors and disappear into the hallway. I look around at the rest of our group and say, “Okay, he totally dug that hole all on his own. You saw that, right? You saw that this fight wasn’t even my fault?” “Their fights are always your fault, because their fights are always about you,” Miranda grumbles. “It’s always Travis saying ‘why are you so mean to Garen,’ and Joss saying ‘why are you so nice to Garen,’ and oh my god, can you stop that?” Only then do I realize that I’ve pulled the cuffs over my hands and cuddled deep into the sweatshirt, fists in front of my face to breathe in the fabric. It’s… sort of objectively creepy. I don’t even care; I tug on the drawstring until the hood eclipses my face and announce, voice muffled by the material, “I can’t help it. He smells like home.” It comes out sounding a lot more like, I’m an elf hat, eat sledding comb, or something equally retarded. “What was that?” Annabelle asks, and I can hear the raised eyebrows, even if I can’t see them. I free my face from the hood and say, “Nothing. Are we going to rehearse today, or what?” We do rehearse, and it goes fairly well—everyone is off-book now, and our vocals are pretty awesome. There’s a minor setback when Nate finally talks me out of my boots and into the Chucks I’ll be wearing with my costume, and we all realize that I need a serious refresher course in the choreography now that I don’t have an extra two pounds strapped to each ankle, but by the time rehearsal ends, I’m a lot more comfortable with it. Everything is fine, right up until I go into one of the classrooms in the back hallway to find where I dropped my keys earlier. The room is empty, but my keys are indeed on one of the desks, right next to a cell phone that’s chirping out a random ringtone. I frown down at the caller ID—Mom. Yeah, because that’s so descriptive. I hover there until the call goes to voicemail, but I’m hesitant to leave the phone here. The rest of the room is empty, and the lights had been off, so I doubt anyone is coming back for it. I pick it up, unlock the front screen, and scroll through the recent call log, figuring it’ll be easy to figure out whose phone it is so I can return it if I just call a name I recognize. Thankfully, there are several—mostly Miranda, a few from Annabelle, a shit-ton from Travis, all mixed in with names I don’t recognize, like Liz, Katie, a bunch from someone named Austin. My thumb is hovering over Travis’ name when a hand flies out and snatches the phone from my hand. I spin around. “Don’t touch my phone,” Joss snaps. I raise my hands in surrender. “I didn’t realize it was yours. I was just trying to figure out who it belonged to so that I could—” “I really fucking hate you, you know that?” she says. My hand clenches around my keys, digging them into my palm. She’s just so fucking rude. I get so much shit for ragging on her, but she doesn’t even try to be civil with me. She doesn’t do anything to make this easier on Travis at all. When I say nothing, she says, “Whatever you think you have with Travis? It doesn’t compare to what we’ve got. Because at the end of the day, all he really cares about now is this.” She settles her palm over her abdomen. It’s pretty much the first time I’ve seen her acknowledge the baby since that first morning in the hall, and now, I’m beginning to feel as sick as I’m sure she does every morning. It kills me, knowing that the tiny little thing that destroys any chance I have of ever getting Travis back is right there inside of her. I can’t believe I’m the kind of guy who can actually be fucked up enough to sort of hate a baby that has done nothing except be conceived by the boy I love and a girl I hate. She continues, “You think he’ll choose you in the end, but he won’t. Not if your competition is me and this baby. You think you matter, but you don’t, Garen. You’re irrelevant.” And then, before I can give a second’s thought to what a bad idea this is, I’m opening my mouth and saying, “I’ll try to remember that when I’m fucking your boyfriend tonight.” She doesn’t move at all. “What did you just say to me?” “I’m pretty sure you heard me,” I say, trying to keep my voice as steady as possible. These aren’t the words I want to be saying. I don’t want to make this all about sex, I don’t want to cheapen it like that—I wish she knew that I’m not the only person who thinks I matter, that Travis thinks it, too. My mom was recording the interviews that day we met about the divorce, and part of me wants to ask her for the tape of Travis admitting, I still am, I always have been. But I don’t have the tapes right now; all I have is this mess of twisted, hateful words. “It’s eight o’clock now, which means in about three hours, you’re going to be at Miranda’s house, watching movies, and I’m going to be balls-deep in your boy’s ass. I’m going to get him down on his hands and knees, probably in our ex-boyfriend’s bed, and I’m going to get him so turned on and desperate that he’s begging for my cock, just like he used to. And tomorrow, when he’s walking you to class, he’ll still be able to feel me inside him with every step, that perfectly painful little twinge from being so thoroughly wrecked. And when you see him and realize what happened, when you kiss him and remember where his mouth has been, then I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me again how irrelevant I am.” I feel like I’m going to make myself sick. I push past her out into the hallway, and she trails after me, her much shorter legs working quickly to keep up with me. She obviously wants to continue the argument, and I just want to win it. I bolt out into the main hall, where I know Travis will be waiting with the rest of our friends. He’s in the middle of conversation with Christine, but I don’t care. Joss rounds the corner of the hall behind me just in time to see me dart up behind Travis, slip an arm around his middle, and lift him a few inches into the air, spinning us both around so we’re facing the door before I set him down again. “Come on, McCall. We need to go find you a costume.” “Do I get to pick the costume?” he says doubtfully. “Nope,” I say, casting a glance around to be sure that Joss is watching. She’s still frozen at the end of the hall, and Travis hasn’t noticed her yet. I sling my arm around his shoulders and say, “Let’s head back to my place.” He rolls his eyes, but the gesture has a hint of fondness behind it, and he agrees, “Fine, let’s go.” By the time we get back to my house, Jamie has already arrived. Dad has welcomed him into the house, but he has taken the liberty of letting himself into my room, taking off most of his clothes, and sprawling out across my bed. Still, he greets Travis and I both with a lazy smile and says, “Good, you’re finally here. Help me with my shark bite.” “Is that a euphemism for some sort of sexual practice we’ve yet to encounter?” I ask. “Because I’m down, but I’m not sure Travis will agree to a threesome.” “He would agree, we’re both incredibly attractive. Speaking of, hello there, Freckles. Don’t you just get cuter and cuter every time I see you?” Jamie says, launching himself off the bed to plant a brief kiss on Travis’ lips. I stuff my hands in my pockets to stop them from twitching forward to separate them. A dull ache rises up in my gut at the fact that, no matter how long we’re friends, I’ll probably never be given permission to kiss Travis hello like that, like it’s nothing. Probably because it never could be nothing for the two of us. Still, Travis takes the greeting in stride and says, “Hello to you, too, James. You realize that it’s fifty degrees outside, right?” “Yes, I’m aware.” “And you realize you’re wearing nothing but a pair of swim trunks and some flip-flops, right?” Travis presses. Jamie rolls his eyes and repeats, “Yes, I’m aware. But I can’t be a shark attack victim if I’m fully dressed, can I?” “Jamie subscribes to the whole ‘Halloween is just an excuse to be drunk and mostly naked’ philosophy,” I explain. The shark attack victim thing is a new idea. Last year, he’d been Adam after the fall of Eden, completely naked except for a few strategically sewn-together fabric fig leaves; if Andrew’s descriptions of the party for the boys of Patton and the girls of our sister school were to be believed, Jamie managed to hook up with one boy alone, two girls individually, and a threesome with one of each, as well as half a dozen phone numbers. Travis squints at Jamie. “Since when does that rule apply to dudes? Seriously, who are you, my girlfriend?” “You know, I am so glad you brought her up, because I’ve been waiting for a chance to hear your side of—” “No. No, Garen, call him off.” “Only if you agree to wear the costume,” I say, pulling my Patton Military Academy Whitman Hall zip-up out of the closet and stroking the chest of it in what I hope is an inviting manner. Jamie snorts. “What, you want him to be a Patton boy for Halloween?” “A specific Patton boy,” I say, wiggling my eyebrows meaningfully. Jamie stares at me, then down at the hoodie. He rounds on Travis and says, “That’s horrible. You have to do it.” “No,” Travis says stubbornly. “So, which do you prefer, sucking dick or eating pussy?” “Jesus fuck, okay,” Travis says, yanking the hoodie out of my hand. I’m too busy gagging to stop him—for the love of god, I thought my bedroom was a sacred place where I’d never have to hear about such heterosexual perversions. Jamie just beams at us both and forces Travis to help him apply the fake blood outline of a huge bite mark on the side of his torso while I make myself busy styling Travis’ hair like mine. His is quite a bit shorter than mine, especially on the sides, but it’s still long enough to flat-iron and spike. I have to use about a quarter the amount of hairspray I use on my own—weird. Maybe I should take mine a little shorter, just for convenience’s sake. Still, his hair is very definitely shaped into something resembling my own, and he lets me dab a little bit of face paint on his freckles to blend them away. That’s my least favorite part, because his freckles are one of the best parts about him, but I keep this thought to myself. He raises an eyebrow when I cover up his tattoo, then rolls his eyes a bit when I replace it with a carefully-drawn T, using a stick of eyeliner I’m pretty sure Ben left here a few weeks ago. The clothing is the easiest part to talk him into; he’s already worn my clothes so many times that he almost looks more comfortable with the black v-neck, Patton zip-up, and leather jacket that I stuff into his hands. He turns away before stripping out of his t-shirt, which of course earns an eyeroll from Jamie, but I’m pretty sure that the gesture is more of an attempt at hiding the cuts on his arm than an attempt at modesty. He is more relaxed once he has layered on the hoodie—left unzipped—and the leather jacket. I trade my boots for his sneakers, and he very reluctantly adds the clip-on lip ring I got from the store. All in all, it’s a shockingly good me costume, except for the blond hair. And-- “Hang on,” I say, snatching up my aviators from the desk where I left them, while Jamie pretends to be interested in perfecting the edges of his mostly-dried shark bite. I crowd much further into Travis’ personal space than necessary to perch the sunglasses on his nose; I wonder if he realizes that, from this close up, the lenses don’t completely hide the fact that his eyes dart down to my mouth for half a second. He licks his lips, tongue flickering briefly over the silver hoop, and I take a quick step back, declaring, “Wow, I’m really hot. I don’t understand how you guys can stand being around me without just constantly putting your hands all over me.” “I can’t,” Jamie leers from across the room. Travis just rolls his eyes and says, “Put your fucking costume on, I wanna go.” Apparently the two goddamn minutes it takes for me to find and change into my platypus costume are too much for them to handle, because I’m still in the process of stripping off my t-shirt when Jamie grabs Travis’ wrist and says, “You’re drinking tonight, right? Let’s go break into Bill’s liquor cabinet.” I can hear Travis protesting all the way up the stairs, but Jamie can be very persuasive. Even after I finish changing into my costume, I decide to dick around the basement for a few minutes before I head up, just to give them time to get a shot or two in before I find them. And really, it’s not the drinking that bothers me; it’s the look on Travis’ face when he worries about the drinking bothering me. Just for good measure, I shoot a text to Ben that says, try not to jump mccall when you see him tonight. remember, you and i are broken up now! He responds with a single question mark, so I head upstairs and sneak into Dad’s study. Jamie is handing Travis the bottle of Tanqueray, which the blond is eyeing doubtfully. After a few further seconds of encouragement—okay, verbal abuse, if I’m being honest—Travis knocks back a quick gulp of gin straight from the bottle. The fake lip ring is shining bright against the green glass, and it’s sort of the perfect opportunity; I raise my cell phone and snap a picture of him, mid-sip. He catches me in the act of sending the picture, and scowls. “Who are you forwarding that to?” “Your fucking mother, Travis,” I say. “I’m sending it to Ben, you idiot.” Jamie takes a very long swallow from the gin before gritting out, “Please extend my greetings to the midget.” “Shit, you weren’t kidding,” Travis says, raising his eyebrows at me. “They really do hate each other.” I let out a hum of agreement and send another text to Ben, this one saying, we’re leaving for your place now, p.s. jamie says hi and that he loves and misses you and can’t wait to spend all night talking to you bc you two are besties xoxo. The reply is two texts in rapid succession. First, I can’t believe you dressed him up as YOU for Halloween, you ridiculous, narcissistic fuck. And then, a few seconds later, I’d rather get skullfucked by a rabid wolverine than spend one minute talking to that unmitigated jackass. But if you’re uncomfortable telling him that, just tell him I say hello. “Ben says he can’t wait to see you tonight,” I tell Jamie. “He says he hopes you two can overcome your differences and develop a treasured bond that will last until the end of time.” “Ugh,” is all Jamie can manage before he dives back in for another long drag off the gin bottle. Honestly, the Christmas-y smell of the liquor is starting to get to me, so I head for the hall, gesturing over my shoulder for them to put the bottle back. I text Ben again--seriously though, best costume ever, right?—as I’m wheedling the keys to the Benz out of my dad with a promise to be home by one o’clock, and he responds just as I’m slipping in behind the steering wheel; No, dumbest costume ever. But I’m uncomfortably into the idea of Travis-dressed-as-you. Or you-dressed-as-Travis. Or both, oh fuck. Because I’m an asshole, I toss the phone into Travis’ lap the second he slides into the backseat so that he can read that text. And because Travis is an asshole, too, the first thing he does when we get to the party—which is already in full swing, with probably thirty people packed into the tiny apartment—is sidle up beside Ben in the living room, plant a quick kiss on his unusually scruffy cheek, and say, “I should’ve drawn some freckles on Garen, bleached his hair, and forced him into my track hoodie. Would’ve been an entirely different sort of party.” When Ben realizes that Travis is still holding my phone, he colors and says, “Whatever, like you’ve never thought about you, me, and G in a threesome before.” “I haven’t,” Travis protests, appearing genuinely shocked at the idea. There’s a chance it really hasn’t occurred to him, especially given the baffling amount of significance he attaches to sex. “I’ve definitely thought about it,” I say, joining them. It’s not untrue—when I’d first moved to town, when I was still fucking Ben, knew about his crush on Travis, and assumed I had no chance of ever landing my own stepbrother, there were a few days where I thought about it obsessively. The appeal had sort of drained away when I actually fell for Travis and realized that the idea of anyone else touching him made me blind with jealousy. I shrug. “So, either he’s lying, or I’m a pervert.” Ben shrugs back. “Both can be true.” He pauses, jerks his chin at Travis. “Did you bring it?” “Here you go,” Travis says, extending his hand. For the first time since coming inside, I realize that he’s holding his Daily Grind apron. Ben accepts it with a nod of thanks, then hooks the strap over his head. His arm is still in the sling, so Travis ties it into place for him. Ben snatches a battered copy of The Catcher in the Rye off the coffee table and sticks it in the pocket of the apron; it just barely peeks out over the top. Travis cocks his head to the side. “What are you supposed to be anyway?” “He won’t tell me,” Alex says, appearing on my other side, “but I’m guessing he’s a hipster.” “Close,” Ben taunts. Jamie joins us, already having found himself a beer and drained half of it. “A suspiciously well-employed homeless person? Because that’s what you look like, with that fucking beard. You are as tall as I was when I was eleven, how the hell can you even grow a beard?” Ben ignores that completely. He is several days unshaven, wearing a slouchy black beanie hat, and has left his reading glasses on. I squint at his clothes, then at the apron and the book hanging out of it. Finally, it hits me, and I snap my fingers. “Hang on, is everybody ready to go home? Because I’m about to win Halloween right now, just like I do every year, with my awesome costumes, and my awesome costume-guessing.” “Alright then, go on. What am I?” I say, “You’re an English major after college graduation, forced to work in a coffee shop because your useless degree has left you unqualified for an adult job, trying to distract yourself from the utter emptiness of your daily life by strong-arming unsuspecting customers into pretentious literary debates about what Salinger really wanted Holden Caulfield’s red hunting hat to symbolize.” I throw my hands up in triumph when he gives a silly little bow of acknowledgment, grinning at me. And then, because he is a goddamn freakshow and is forever saying weird shit that he knows the rest of us won’t really understand, he says, “‘Up home, we wear a hat like that to shoot deer in, for Chrissake,’ he said. ‘That’s a deer shooting hat.’” I open my mouth to reply, but before I can, Jamie barks out a laugh and says, “Like hell it is. This is a people shooting hat.” I frown at him, and he shuffles around to stand behind me, hooking his chin over my shoulder and peering down at Ben, adding in an offhand sort of voice, “I shoot people in this hat.” “Okaaaaay,” I say, drawing out the word and shrugging him off my shoulder. “So, it looks like my friends have lost their minds, that’s cool.” But they’re both just sort of blinking at each other warily, so I roll my eyes and turn to Alex, hoping he’ll give me some attention instead. “Scale of one to ten, how rad am I for guessing that costume?” “How the hell did you guess it?” Alex demands, but I’m too distracted by his own costume to reply. He’s dressed pretty normally, but one of his arms is pulled inside his shirt so that it looks like it’s missing. There’s a pair of drumsticks in his pocket. Noticing my eyes on him, he adds, “Rick Allen. One-armed Def Leppard drummer.” “He’s just doing it to torment me, you know. Because it’s one of the only things we can’t agree on,” says a voice behind me. I turn around, and there’s Stohler, in jean shorts and a half-shredded t-shirt, covered in glitter and makeup, holding a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. She offers it to me, and when Travis makes a sharp noise of protest, she rolls her eyes. “Relax, kid. It’s a prop. This thing’s full of iced tea, even I don’t drink enough to want to carry around a real bottle of Jack all night.” I squint at the bottle, then adjust my gaze to focus on the toothbrush pinned between the fingers of that same hand clutching the bottle. “Are you—is this like, before I leave, brush my teeth with a bottle of—are you fucking Ke$ha?” “Aaaaand she’s just doing that to torment me,” Alex says as Stohler rakes her mess of hair back and beams at me. I level a finger at her and say, “You are an embarrassment to the human race. And that’s coming from a guy who’s dressed as a platypus right now. So, really, you need to look at your life choices, yeah? I’m going to go get a drink.” The kitchen has been mostly taken up by a folding table that people are using for beer pong. I hover at the edge of it for a few minutes, just to make sure that they’re playing in a way I can actually participate in. Fortunately for my sobriety—and for basic rules of sanitation—the cups are all full of water, and the players are drinking from their own cups on the side. As long as I can convince people to go along with my designated drinker idea, I can definitely get a chance to play later, which is… reassuring. I like knowing that I won’t be automatically excluded from all party activities just because of how badly I’ve fucked up my life so far. I pour some pop into one of the red Solo cups and clear a space on the counter so that I can hop up onto it. Ben is the first to join me in the kitchen, wedging himself between my slightly parted knees and kissing me on the cheek—I’m grateful that the end of our not-relationship hasn’t made him forget how much I still sort of need that level of physical contact. I stroke the tips of my fingers down the length of his arm, shoulder to elbow, and say, “How’s your arm feeling?” “Fine,” he says, grimacing. “Still feels a little weird, and I’d be lying if I said that showering wasn’t a little bit painful, but I can’t complain too much.” I duck down to brush my lips over the edge of his jaw. “Well, if you decide you need some help with the showering thing, I’d be more than happy to—” “Did we or did we not break up last week?” he says. “Boundaries, G.” “Why does everyone keep saying that to me?” I grumble. When we’re joined by the others twenty or so minutes later, each of them is holding a drink, and Jamie is attempting to explain to Stohler why he doesn’t think it’s weird that he basically has a girlfriend, but still fucks men. “I’m just saying, I think it’s bizarre,” she says, shrugging. “If you all would just stay single or remain in committed, monogamous relationships, you’d solve pretty much all your problems.” “I’m in a committed, monogamous relationship,” Travis says indignantly, though the effort it takes him to properly enunciate monogamous makes me wonder if the beer in his hand is his second or third. Stohler sneers at him. “Don’t even get me started on you and your little relationship, dude.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” Travis says. He takes a very long sip from his beer, as though steeling himself for Stohler’s words. That’s probably a good idea, because Stohls says flatly, “It’s supposed to mean that you’re an idiot. And you’d probably be better off dating literally anyone else in the entire world, because your girlfriend is a judgmental cunt.” I open my mouth to object—to defend Joss on Travis’ behalf, even though everyone here knows I hate her—but then Travis snorts and goes, “God, you have no idea.” “So, why are you dating her?” Jamie asks. “Sex,” I say quickly, before Travis’ tipsiness can lead him to do something as stupid as reveal that stupid parasite of a fetus. “He’s in it for the hours upon hours of hetero-rific, mind-blowing, ball-slapping sex.” Travis just makes a face into his beer and says, “The sex is okay.” Jamie mimics the face back at him and says, “Just okay? McCall, really. Life is too short to have sex that’s okay.” Travis makes a vague gesture and is apparently just drunk enough to be comfortable talking about his sex life, because he continues, “Well, it’s good. It’s really good, actually.” I take a sip of my drink, mostly because I’m hoping that will stop me from scowling. It doesn’t. “But it’s sort of—it’s the same thing every time, I guess? It’s fine, it just gets sort of boring after a while. And it’s—like, I miss blowjobs,” he says, and Jamie snorts. “Giving or receiving?” Stohler asks, smirking at him. “Both,” Travis decides. He pauses, then narrows his eyes and points at Ben. “You don’t give them, either.” I blink, because okay, he definitely does. I’m fully prepared to defend that point, but Ben smiles serenely and says, “I absolutely give blowjobs, but you never asked for one.” “Neither did you, but I still did it!” Travis protests. My hand tightens on my cup. It’s not that I didn’t know they’d fucked around while they were together, but that idea gets to me more than I’m comfortable with. I don’t like knowing that there’s something that Travis did for Ben, even though Travis and I never actually got that far. Ben just shrugs and says, “Well, you should’ve asked. Garen asked all the time. Well, sort of.” I shoot him a questioning look, and he adds, “I’m not really sure that ‘let me fuck your mouth’ counts as asking, per se. Still, you asked. And Ethan asked.” “Who’s Ethan?” Stohler asks. Ben shrugs. “First guy I hooked up with. He wasn’t anybody important—just some asshole from my youth group at church. The kind of guy who thought that being hot as hell and the center forward on his fancy Catholic school’s soccer team meant he could treat people like shit and never have to deal with repercussions.” “Hang on, I’m sorry,” Jamie says, before anyone else can speak. “But—y’all aren’t talking about Ethan Hall, are you?” It occurs to me now that I don’t actually know this Ethan guy’s last name, and based on the similarly blank expressions on everyone else’s faces, it hasn’t been brought up before. But Ben’s back has gone rigid, and his expression has turned wary. “Um,” is all he manages to say at first. “Maybe. Yes. Do you know him?” “You lost your virginity to Ethan Hall,” Jamie clarifies. Ben nods very slowly. “You’ve—fuck, is he even queer?” “Maybe. Yes,” Ben repeats, now looking slightly panicked. “You’re not even from around here. You’re from Georgia, you went to school in New York. How do you know him?” “You nailed my cousin, McCutcheon,” Jamie says, somewhat hysterically. “That’s—Ethan Hall is my cousin!” Alex laughs so hard he has to sit down on the floor, because standing up just doesn’t seem to be an option for him. Ben is protesting something about this was before I even met you, how the fuck was I supposed to know, and Jamie just keeps babbling on about we look almost identical, how could you not know, and Stohler has slumped against Travis’ side, giggling madly into his shoulder. I stroke my palm over Ben’s hat to calm him down, and it works decently well. Jamie, however, is still just shaking his head compulsively and taking frequent sips from his cocktail. “This is horrible,” he says faintly. “My god. I’m picturing sexual relations between my own cousin and probably my third-least favorite person on the planet. This is—I’m fucking traumatized.” Travis shrugs and says, “Hey, at least nobody’s spit a mouthful of cum at you lately.” I choke on a sip of my pop, and Ben buries his burning face in the front of my hoodie. Alex just looks revolted and asks, “What the fuck are you talking about? What kind of person would do that?” “Gee, I don’t know. Let’s ask the audience. Hey, Ben, what kind of person would do that?” Travis asks. Voice still somewhat muffled by the fabric against his mouth, Ben grumbles, “The kind of person who already texted you on Saturday to apologize, Travis.” “Do you have any idea how close my girlfriend came to beating the shit out of me when she walked out of rehearsal and found me sitting in a car that was—like, what word do you want me to use here? Splattered? Covered?” “Okay, ‘covered’ is a wild exaggeration,” I say. “Can we compromise on ‘decorated’?” “Decorated, Garen? Really?” Travis says. “It’s not like he draped Christmas lights all over it, dude. He got mad at me, so he sucked your cock, had you come in his mouth, climbed on top of my car, and spit it onto my windshield. That’s not decoration!” Alex covers his face with both hands and groans, “Dude, please tell me you didn’t really do that.” But Jamie, in a drunken display of glee that surprises even me, lets out a shout of laughter, flings an arm around Ben’s shoulders, and drags him away from my chest and into a sloppy squeeze that might actually be a hug. Apparently, the statute of limitations on him giving a shit about someone banging his cousin is pretty brief. Their height difference is almost comical now, and Jamie has to stoop down nearly a foot to brush his grinning mouth over the shell of Ben’s ear as he murmurs, “Oh my Lord, please tell me you really did that.” Ben uses his good arm to elbow him in the ribs so he can wriggle away. “I did it. And if he’s going to keep whining about it, I’ll get down on my knees right now and suck Garen off so I can do it again, even without the windshield between us.” “Doubt it would be the first time he had Garen’s spunk on his face, so—” “My life was infinitely better when none of you guys were speaking to me,” Travis says, stomping to the refrigerator for another beer so that none of us can see how red his face is. This only delights Jamie further. He rounds on me and says, “For the love of God, he still blushes. How is that even possible? I would’ve thought that anybody who’d had sex with you as much as this kid has would be immune to that. You’re the most shameless person I’ve ever met in my life, and that’s the sort of thing that tends to rub off on people, when you’re, you know, rubbing off on them.” I smile and shrug. Correctly interpreting my silence, he narrows his eyes and says, “How many times did you guys do it, anyway? Like, three?” “Are you talking about just screwing around, or actual screwing?” I ask. He makes a vague gesture that I’m sure only I understand. “Seven and a half.” Alex snorts. “What, seriously? I’m pretty sure you and Ben have fucked that many times in this room alone.” “That’s not true,” I say indignantly. “We’ve fucked in the kitchen like, three times. Tops. Just that counter—” “—and that counter,” Ben adds, pointing to the one that Stohler is leaning against. She shoots it a look tinged with distaste and moves over to lean against the kitchen table. I shake my head. “Nope, Stohls, you’re gonna want to stand up, we did it there, too.” “Against the fridge once,” Ben says thoughtfully. I shake my head and raise two fingers into the air. He amends, “Alright, twice. Still, that’s only five. Not seven and a half.” But Travis waves us all into silence and says, “I’m sorry, but how do you have sex half a time? More specifically, when did we have sex half a time?” I raise my eyebrows at him, and suddenly, there’s a spark in his eyes. “Oh, god. Are you talking about that time—” “Yep,” I say, staring hard at him over the lip of my cup as I take another sip of pop. I am referring, of course, to the Wednesday night we’d been left home alone for half an hour while Evelyn ran to the store. We’d been sitting across from each other at the kitchen table—he had been doing his homework, I had been doing something stupid, probably playing Tetris on my phone, I don’t even remember anymore—but the second we’d heard the engine of Evelyn’s car stuttering to life out in the driveway, we’d been on each other. I’d shoved him down onto the kitchen table, ignoring his protests about how for fuck’s sake, Garen, we eat here, what are you doing, and sucking him off with such enthusiasm he’d been unable to object for too long. He had made me stop before he got a chance to come, shoving both our jeans down to our knees and letting me bend him over the side of the table and press into him. I had looped an arm around his waist and doubled over to cover his back with my chest, whispering against the back of his neck, little things like feels so good and you’re gorgeous and I love you, I love you, I love you. He had twisted his head around to catch me up in a kiss, and when we’d heard the car turning into the driveway again, I’d tried to pull out, but he had just shoved my hand at his dick and begged, please, I’m so close, just a little more. Seeing him so undone that he didn’t even care about the fact that his mom had been a minute from walking back into the house had been unbelievably hot; hot enough that I obeyed, and it only took a few more strokes before he was coming over my hand, and I was doing my best to catch the stickiness in my palm because how the fuck would we ever explain that mess on the kitchen table. He had almost been shaking too hard to pull his jeans back into place, and I’d still been mostly undressed when the front door opened—I hadn’t even had time to take the condom off, I’d just yanked my pants back up and sank into my seat, trying to smile like a normal person when Evelyn sailed back into the kitchen and started work on dinner. My cock had still been painfully hard in my jeans, still uncomfortably sheathed in latex, and I had snatched Travis’ notebook away from him to scribble in the margin, I need to come so fucking badly right now. I didn’t finish, this doesn’t count. Get your ass upstairs, we’re going again. He had rolled his eyes and written, We can’t just disappear upstairs right now, that’ll look so suspicious. Wait until after dinner, I promise I’ll get you back. Your cum is all over my hand right now, Travis, is all I had written back. He had blinked at the paper for nearly a minute, a slow flush creeping into his cheeks. When he had finally looked up at me, I’d chanced a glance to make sure Evelyn was focused on her cooking, and then I had stared Travis dead in the eyes and licked my hand clean. He had absolutely lost it, barely sparing a somewhat hysterical, Mom, we’re going upstairs, Garen’s going to help me study for my math test, over his shoulder as he dragged me up the staircase and locked us in his bedroom. We had both gotten off after that, though I maintained my defense that we’d fucked one and a half times that night, not twice—average number of climaxes per person involved. Now, Travis is staring at me and swallowing hard, that same beautiful flush in his face. I hitch my chin at him and say, “You still owe me an orgasm for that night, by the way.” “Come find me after I’ve had about three more of these beers, and I’ll let you collect,” he says, a smirk twitching to life on the edges of his lips. I can’t tell if he’s actually tipsy enough to be flirting with me, or if he’s just still trying to keep in character with his me-costume. Either way, it makes me laugh, right up until Stohler stomps hard on my foot and hisses softly enough that no one else can hear, “Pregnant girlfriend, you fucking idiot, stop mooning over him.”

Thankfully, one of the other partygoers chooses that moment to take over the stereo, cranking up some horrible white-boy hip hop song about college. The group of people playing beer pong abandons their game in favor of relocating to the living room to sing drunkenly along; I lurch towards the table and say, “I need somebody who’s drinking on my team, and somebody who’s drinking to be over there, on a team with Ben.”

It had sort of been my intention to have Stohler on my team, and Alex on Ben’s, but Stohls wanders off to go find some SoCo state boy to flirt with, and Alex is dragged away by a girl he says is in his science class. Travis rests his chin on my shoulder and says, “I’ve never played beer pong before. Teach me?” “Sure,” I say, even though what I really want to say is, I have so many more interesting things I could teach you, if you’d just dump your girlfriend, strip off your clothes, and let me take care of you. I call across the table, “Hey, Jamie. You cool with partnering your best friend over there?” Jamie’s eyes are fixed on the hallway, where Alex has disappeared with the girl from his school. He catches an elbow to the ribs from Ben, then snaps out of it. “Hmm? Oh. Yeah, sure.” I can tell that he’s off-base; it’s the only excuse for why he’d agree to be Ben’s teammate without any real hesitation. I offer him my most reassuring smile, and he returns with something that looks more like a grimace. What I want to do is go after Alex and punch him in the throat for making my best friend make that face again, but what I end up doing is racking the cups and digging the ball out from under the table. I poke Travis in the stomach and say, “Simple. You try to toss it into the cups at the other end. It makes it in, the cup gets taken away and the other team has to drink. Or, Jamie has to drink. If he or Ben gets it in one of our cups, you have to drink, and I just have to stand here and look sexy. There are other rules, but those are the basics. Got it?” “Got it,” he confirms with a tiny salute. It’s so fucking cute, but I attended Patton for too many years to resist repositioning his hand and saying, “You salute to the outer edge of your eyebrow, not the middle of your forehead.” He smiles and says, “I so can’t picture you doing all that military school stuff.” “You should’ve seen me in the dress uniform I had to wear for special events,” I murmur, and his eyes go dark. I smirk at him and turn my focus back to the table. I give the ball a light toss and catch it, just to get a feel for it, then shoot a semi-amused glance over my shoulder at Travis, who is practically flush against me. “Are you going to back up at all?” He looks down at where his hips are pressed against my ass, then back up at my face and says, “Hadn’t really planned on it, no.” “Garen, now might be a nice time for me to inform you of something that the rest of us learned during the last few parties, when you were still in New York,” Ben says, and I look back at him. “Travis? Kind of a slutty drunk.” Jamie snorts, and Travis protests, “No, I’m not,” though his words are somewhat less credible because of the kiss he presses to the side of my neck. My skin burns at the point where his lips touched. I swallow hard and toss the ball, sinking it easily into one of the side cups. Ben moves the cup to the side of the table, and Jamie raises his own cup in a toast before he drinks. I move aside so that Travis can make his shot—he misses, unsurprisingly—then return to the counter where the drinks are to find my cup. I frown down at them. “Which one of these is mine?” “Dunno,” Jamie says, eyes fixed calculatingly on the cups on the far end of the table. “Want me to sip them and see? Just so you’re sure you’re not taking something with booze in it?” “Nah, I’m good,” I say, opting to just get a fresh cup and refill it. I’d rather be safe than sorry. Rather be safe than relapsed. I take a sip, set the cup down again, and return to the table. Jamie has made his shot, and is busy preemptively berating Ben for missing the shot he hasn’t taken yet. Ben finally manages to silence him with a glare, and tosses the ping-pong ball. It bounces once and sinks into the front cup. I move the cup aside and roll the ball across the table. Travis frowns and grabs my elbow. “Hang on, isn’t it our turn?” “It’s nobody’s turn, until you fucking drink,” Jamie warns, and Travis takes a begrudging swallow. That out of the way, Jamie adds, “The midget and I each got it in, so we get a rollback.” At Travis’ blank expression, I clarify, “They get to make one more throw.” Travis scowls. “I’m beginning to feel like this entire game is going to end up with me getting completely shit-faced.” I laugh, but Jamie misses the rollback, so Travis is safe for now. We play for another few minutes, and everything is fine—Jamie and Ben are winning, but I have a sneaky plan to force a draw by knocking the table over if we’re too far behind when they get down to the last cup. Travis is more than a little drunk right now, and he’s trying to shush Jamie’s constant stream of verbal abuse so that he can concentrate on his next shot. I’m grinning, feeling warm and happy all over when I snag my cup from the counter and take a sip. Except, it’s the wrong cup. By the time the flavor registers, I’ve already begun to swallow a huge gulp of the drink. Panicking, I try to stop my throat from working, mid-swallow, but that’s not really possible, and all I end up doing is making myself choke. It’s too late, and now, my stomach is churning with a sip of pop and probably half a shot of Makers Mark. It’s not enough to get me drunk, it’s not enough to make me sick, it’s not enough to do anything—but it’s enough for me to taste it, and that’s all it takes. “Oh, fuck,” I say. I can’t do this. I can’t have this near me, not now that I’ve tasted it, not now that I remember. I shove the cup into the nearest pair of empty hands—some random partygoer’s. She raises it and sniffs, then cocks her head to the side. She takes a sip and says, cheerfully, “Thanks, man.” “Garen?” Travis says from behind me. “Oh, fuck,” I repeat. I’m shivering, but it’s not because of the temperature in the room. I’m shaking because of how badly I’m craving that warm, almost caramel flavor, that sharp sweetness, that—fuck, everything. How can it possibly be this intense? How can I be totally fine one minute, and the next, I feel like I might die if I don’t get some more of that perfection? And then, for a third time, “Oh, fuck.” There’s a hand on my back, then another on my elbow—Jamie and Ben, respectively. I know the touch of all of these boys way too well to be unaware of that. Jamie says, “Did you grab the wrong cup?” I nod jerkily. “And it was—you had a drink, instead? I mean, it was booze?” “Well, obviously,” Ben snaps at him, and Christ, the last thing I need right now is to hear the two of them bitching at each other. I spin around to face them; my eyes are watering from how painfully wide they are, but I need to tell them, I need them to know. “I-I didn’t realize. It was—all the cups look the same, I thought it was mine, I didn’t know it was one with bourbon in it. There—I wasn’t—I didn’t want it. I don’t want this. You have to believe me.” “We believe y—” Jamie starts to say, but then Travis is shoving him out of the way and pressing another red cup into my hand. “Drink this,” he orders, and I do, without question. Orange juice. At Ben’s questioning glance, he gives a jerky little half-shrug; he’s still drunk, his eyes are still a little glassy, but he’s so much more alert than he was a few minutes ago. He says, “You didn’t have enough to get you wasted, but I know it’ll still—this will get the taste out of your mouth. It’s—that’s the problem, right? I mean, I know that’s why a lot of people in recovery won’t cook with alcohol, because of the flavor, not because of the proof. This should help, right?” I suck down the rest of the juice as fast as I can, and that does help. It’s enough to wash the real flavor from my mouth, but it doesn’t change the fact that I can feel it. I know it’s there, inside my body. Does this count? Did I just lose seven weeks of sobriety by taking a sip of a drink I didn’t know was spiked? Is this what starting over should feel like? And Travis—infuriating, beautiful Travis, who crawled into my head a year ago and never left, who is still swimming around inside my thoughts—knows, because he curves a hand over the back of my neck and says, “This doesn’t count. You know that, right, G? It was an accident, not a relapse. You’re fine. Okay?” I nod and shrug his hand off of me. “Yeah. I’m just going to, um—fuck, I’m going to go rinse my mouth out.” It wasn’t an invitation, but Travis loops his fingers around my forearm and trails after me to the bathroom, which is thankfully empty. The toothbrush I used after my last—no. The toothbrush I used after my first relapse, my only relapse, is still sitting in the brush holder on the edge of the sink. I brush my teeth once quickly, but I don’t feel any better, so I do it again. For all his support, Travis gets kind of bored with waiting; by the time I’m done, he has climbed into the empty bathtub to hang out, and is gnawing at the clip-on lip ring. It’s a nice distraction from the lingering ache in my gut, so in between multiple rinses of my mouth with water from the faucet, I ask, “Are you really drunk right now?” “Are you really my dad right now?” he asks, so instinctively defensive that I almost choke on mouthful of water because I can’t stop myself from laughing. His own mouth curves into a smile, and he admits, “That… maybe just answered your question without me meaning it to.” “Yeah, maybe. I’m going to head outside for a smoke. You wanna come with me, get some air?” I offer. He’s not really drunk enough to need air. He’s not falling down, or blacking out, or lying in a gutter, dying of alcohol poisoning, he’s not Garen Anderson drunk, but there’s no harm in taking him away from the noise for a few minutes. He nods, and I wind my fingers around his wrist, smearing off half the replacement tattoo, pulling him out of the bathtub, and guiding him out into the too-quiet hallway outside the apartment. Once we’re down on the sidewalk, I lean him up against the side of the building, then dig around in the inside pocket of the jacket he’s wearing to find my cigarettes and lighter. He makes a vaguely pleased noise and shuffles closer to me, like he’s half-hoping I’m trying to grope him, not just find my smokes. By the time I manage to get what I need and step back, he is palming contentedly at my waist through my hoodie, and my face is hot. I lean against the wall next to him, letting the October—or, is it after midnight, yet? Is it November?—air cool my burning skin. A cluster of children in costumes is making their way down the sidewalk towards us, so either it’s earlier than I thought, or parents in New Haven really suck. “Trick or treat!” the group of children exclaims, holding out their candy sacks. Travis looks glumly down at his empty hands, then at the kids. “We don’t have any candy to give you. All I’ve got in this jacket is cigarettes and what feels suspiciously like a handful of condoms. And I think that accepting either of those things from us now could really mess you up, later in life. So—” “Sorry,” I cut across him, reaching out to clamp a hand over his mouth, even though there’s a wide smile stretching across my own face. “We’re not giving out candy, we’re at a party. But I think the next building over has some stuff, if you go there.” The kids glower at us and make their way towards the neighboring apartment building. I look around at Travis, releasing him and asking, “Are you always that skilled at communicating with children?” He flashes me a lazy smile and says, “But of course.” He lets his shoulders slump back against the wall and spreads his arms out against it, fingers creeping drunkenly across the edges of the bricks as he mumbles, “Gonna be father of the fucking year, obviously.” Father of the year. Right. Because he’s going to be that, he’s going to be a dad. Because he has a pregnant girlfriend, so I should stop staring at his fucking mouth. Snap out of it, Anderson, it’s not the same as it was last year. You can’t kiss him just because he’s here, and he’s gorgeous, and you want to. “Can I ask you a question?” I say, and he gives a genial nod. I don’t even know what I want my question to be. Probably can I kiss you, but I already know what the answer will be, so there’s no point. I hesitate, but what eventually comes out is, “Are you happy?” He cocks his head to the side, like the word is foreign to him. “Am I happy?” “With Joss,” I clarify. “Are you happy with her?” There is a momentary flash of agony and panic across his face; he tries to disguise it with a wide smile that, in his inebriation, he probably assumes looks less fake than it does. “Joss is a cool person. I know you guys don’t get along, but sh-she and I, we’re um… we’re good together. I mean, it’s challenging? We’ve both been under a lot of stress lately, because of the whole baby thing, but I-I think it’s—all couples have problems, you know? Everybody fights. But we’re still, it’s a good relationship. We—” I shake my head once, and that’s all it takes. The fake smile disappears, his eyes fall shut, and his head drops back to rest against the side of the building. “No,” he admits softly, “I’m not really that happy with her.” “Then why are you still with her?” I demand. “You know why,” he says, a little bit miserably. “It’s not like things between Joss and I are awful, they’re just not that great, either. And that’s a dumb reason to break up, okay? Especially if it might impact the relationship she lets me have with the baby after it’s born.” That sends an ice-cold shiver down my spine. “S-So, what, you’re going to stay with her for the next eighteen years, just so she has no shot at keeping the kid from you? You’re seriously going to stay together for the kids?” “No, I’m—stop putting words in my mouth,” he says, somewhat desperately. “I’m not saying that I’m going to stay with her for the next two decades, what the fuck. I’m just thinking about my future, okay? And I think that things would be a lot easier, and a lot less stressful if she and I just make it work for right now. Even if she wasn’t pregnant, I might stay with her. It’s not a bad relationship just because you don’t like her, alright? She’s a cool person. She and I can make this work for at least a little while longer. I can be happy with her, if—” “I think you could be happy, maybe,” I say, refusing to look at anything but the glowing tip of my cigarette, “if you were with me.” His eyes finally snap open, and he inhales sharply. “G, are we really going to have this conversation?” “We’ve never had this conversation, Travis,” I snap. “You’ve had this conversation with Ben, and Alex, and my fucking mother, but you’ve never actually told me why you and I can’t be together. You—fuck, were you lying that day, when you said you’re still in love with me?” He shakes his head slowly, and I can’t stop myself from ordering, “Say it. I want you to look me in the eyes and say those words. I deserve that much.” Emboldened by my frustration and the alcohol still coursing through his bloodstream, he straightens up, no longer using the wall for support, and turns to lock his eyes on mine. My jaw is so tightly locked that I almost don’t hear him over the sound of my teeth grinding together, and it takes everything in me not to fall completely apart when he says, “I love you.” “I love you, too,” I hurry to say, before the rejection that I know is still coming. He sighs, tries to drag his fingers through his hair, only to be stopped by the intense amount of hairspray I had to load him down with. He makes a face at his hand and wipes it on his jeans, even though I use that hairspray every day, I know it’s not sticky after the first fifteen seconds it’s on. Still, it’s a gesture so adorably Travis that I have to press on, “If I wasn’t an addict, and we didn’t have to worry about my sobriety being an issue. And if you and Joss hadn’t gotten together, and she wasn’t pregnant. Would you want to be with me then?” I ask. He doesn’t say yes. He doesn’t say no, either. He remains completely silent, because the way he’s looking at me is answer enough. “Then dump her,” I burst out. It’s what I’ve been dying to say since the moment I realized they were together, and now that I’ve said it, I don’t think I can stop myself. “Dump her and take me back. If those are the two reasons you won’t be with me—you’re worried about my sobriety. Okay. I get that, and I appreciate it, but I can handle my own sobriety. You saw me tonight, you saw me accidentally take that sip, you saw me start wanting, and you saw me resist it. I’m better, Trav, I’m so much better than I was before. You don’t need to worry about me staying clean, so just—just table that reason for a second, okay?” “Fine,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Fine, that huge, gigantic reason can be tabled for a second.” He’s being a sarcastic little shit, but he’s also wavering, I can tell. I continue, “And if we table that, then the only thing standing in our way is the pregnant chick, and you don’t even love her. I mean, fuck, Travis. You’re seventeen years old, you’re too young to make yourself unhappy by staying with someone just for the kid she’s going to have. You can—I’m not telling you that she should get rid of it, or that you should bail on the kid after it’s born. But you don’t need to be with Joss to be a good father. I mean, my mom and dad aren’t together anymore, but fuck, I have the best parents in the entire world. You and Joss could do that, have a kid but not be with each other.” “It’s not just about Joss and the baby, and you know it,” he protests. “It’s about me, and it’s about you, and the fact that I know—I know it, Garen, right here—” He palms furiously at his own chest, right over his heart, “—I know you’re not ready to be with anyone. I keep telling you that, and you keep ignoring me. That’s why everything went so badly with you and Ben. Because neither of you was healthy enough for—” “You don’t get to decide what I’m healthy enough to handle!” I argue. “For fuck’s sake, dude, I’m an adult. I know about the ‘one year sober before dating’ rule, alright? My shrink has told me all about it, and I’ve read all those gay little pamphlets from AA and NA and everybody else, but I don’t care. Those rules exist for people who get involved in really fucked up shit, not for people who—what we had together, Travis? It was good. We had a goddamn good relationship, and you can’t deny that.” He hitches his chin at me and says, “Oh, yeah? And what happens when we break up again?” “We don’t,” I say flatly, ignoring the additional eyeroll that earns me. “Don’t make that fucking face at me, I’m serious. You and I are going to get back together, and we’re never going to break up. Get your phone out, call your girlfriend, and dump her ass—seriously, I’ll wait right here, you can do it in front of me, I won’t mind. And then after that, you and I, we’re going to go make out in the backseat of my dad’s Benz until it’s time to leave, and then we’re going to… shit, we’re going to date, Travis. We’re going to date, and you’re going to go to prom with me even though the idea of doing something as lamely high school as going to prom makes my eye twitch, and we’re going to, I don’t know—fucking… have a shit-ton of crazy-awesome sex and get married and be together forever, and I’m not taking no for an answer, because you have had a year to figure this shit out, and every time you get close to it, you suddenly get your head up your own ass, and I’m just over it. So fuck you, I’m laying down the law. Dump your girlfriend so we can date.” He squints at me. “Did you just stamp your foot?” “No,” I snarl, though I repeat the stamp even as I say it. “Oh my god, are you four? Like, fuck, if this is you proving that ‘I’m an adult’ argument from earlier, you’re doing it so wrong.” “You’re in love with me,” I say, and it comes out as an accusation more than anything else. “You’re in love with me, and I’m in love with you, and you’re a fucking idiot with a girlfriend, but I want to date you anyway, so stop fucking arguing with me so that we—” And whatever I’m expecting him to interrupt me with, it’s certainly not what he does say, which is, “Can you just shut the fuck up and kiss me already?” My heart is beating so hard that I’m worried it might break my ribs, but I’ve broken ribs before, so I know that it would be worth it, just to have his lips on mine again. I’m pressed against him in an instant, slotting one of my legs between his and bringing our chests flush together, reaching up to clasp his face between my hands, leaning in and-- The door to the building opens and Stohler tumbles out. She lights up when she sees me and says, “Hey! I was looking for you! I’m going to head home, so I just wanted to say happy Halloween, and—” Her voice dies when she finally realizes that I’ve got Travis pinned up against the side of the building, that I’m literally shaking with the effort it takes to not kiss him right now. The bright smile on Stohler’s face disappears in an instant. Her voice is flat as she says, “Anderson. What the fuck. We talked about this.” “I know,” is all I can say. “He has a girlfriend. He has a hell of a lot more than a girlfriend. Knock it the fuck off.” It’s a strong enough rebuke that I find myself stepping quickly backward, because she’s right. Fuck. She’s right, and I’m an asshole, and this needs to not be happening anymore. I say, “Can you stay with him for a minute? I’m going to go find Jamie. I think we should head out.” She gives a curt nod, and I bolt back indoors. I stomp back up to the apartment to find Jamie, who isn’t in the kitchen or the living room. Hedging my bets, I head for Alex’s bedroom, fling open the door, and—oh, shit. Alex is sprawled out on his bed, and for half a second, I think that Ben is sucking him off. Then I realize that no, the person with short, dark hair and pale white skin is actually a girl. It’s just… a girl who happens to look way too much like Ben for me to be comfortable. Alex looks over at me and groans out, “Jesus fuck, why do none of my friends understand how to knock? First Ben and Jamie, now you—” “He was here?” I say, the bottom of my stomach dropping out. “He came in here, he saw you like this?” Alex offers a somewhat guilty nod and admits, “Yeah, like two minutes ago. Not like I think he’d care all that much.” I want to punch him now more than ever, because holy hell, does he really think I’m talking about Ben? I sneer down at the girl in his lap and bite out, “Your girl’s technique fucking sucks. And I know for a fact that Jamie gives better head.” I slam the door behind myself and storm down the hall. I know exactly how Jamie’s bound to be feeling right now, minutes after seeing Alex getting off with some random who looks like Ben, which means—if I know my best friend at all—he’s probably taking this special moment out of the evening to make Ben’s life hell. I throw open the door to Ben’s bedroom, and sure enough, Ben is giving Jamie a hard shove in the chest, almost enough to send Jamie to the ground. They’re glaring at each other so ferociously that I’m pretty convinced that someone’s going to get punched if they’re both still in this room thirty seconds from now. Jamie whips around to glare at me now, and I say, “Can I seriously not leave you two alone for ten minutes without you starting to push each other around?” Presumably as part of some grand if the guy who fucks me only wants you, I’ll get back at you by making the guy who fucks you want me plan, he shoves me up against the doorframe and brings our mouths crashing together. It’s painful, and bruising, and I sink into it, because right now, I need this at least as much as he does. I need to know that I can still be wanted. He moves away too soon, and I make another dive to get his mouth back on mine, but he just twists his hands into fists around the front of my sweatshirt and says, “I fucking hate your friends.” He shoots one last glare over his shoulder and stomps out of the room, leaving me alone with Ben. We stare at each other for a solid minute before I explode, “That’s it! I’m converting to Catholicism and becoming a priest, so that I can go live in one of those little priest communes where everybody talks about Jesus and nobody fucks anybody, because dick is ruining my life.” “Yeah,” Ben says glumly, “I think we’d be really bad at the celibacy thing, though.” “Well, it’s not like we could be worse at it than we are now, right?” I say, making a vague gesture that I hope he realizes encompasses all of us. “I’m just… whatever. I’m just so fucking done with this whole group, sometimes.” He nods again, but I hope he realizes I don’t really mean it.